Due to the popularity of the original Napster and other early file sharing services, a large segment of the population believes it should not have to pay for the rights to digitally download music, movies, or other forms of Internet accessible entertainment. The Recording Industry Association of America has led the fight to stop the wholesale theft of intellectual property rights from its members. According to the RIAA's website, global music piracy causes more than $12.5 billion dollars in economic losses every year and the loss of more than 71,000 jobs.
Love or hate Apple, the company created an easy to use device, the iPod and set an unofficial price point of $.99 for each entertainment segment that is downloaded. In 2007, Radiohead provided fans the opportunity to pay whatever a fan wanted for the right to download their songs. Recently, Linkin Park was a driving force behind another pay what you want effort for non-profit Music For Relief that supports the Haiti relief effort. This business model may work in some cases, but the free rider dilema where too many people don't want to pay a fair price for a product or service is still a challenge that social media content providers must confront.
Amazon recently tried to replicate Apple's business model and industry position in the book business with their price point of $9.99 per Kindle download. However, major publishing house, Macmillian has refused to accept Amazon's price point and a legal dispute may be in the works.
As an active user of social media, I am fully aware of the cost of content creation and usage. Most social media websites are financially supported by advertising. Some have paywalls that offer a teaser before requiring a user to pay and others are fully subscription based. In the pornography industry, there are group subscriptions where belonging to one site automatically enables you to access other sites with your subscription or provides a reduced rate for membership.
The newspaper industry is on life support and it appears that Senator Cardin's proposal to allow newspapers to become non-profits has not been embraced by the marketplace. In contrast, Rupert Murdoch has been preaching about charging for his newspaper's content. As a Wall Street Journal subscriber, I believe the paper is one of only a couple of news organizations in the world that offers content that its users are willing to pay a subscription premium for. However, if I was offered a flat fee to access premium content for 25 of my most visited social media websites, I may be willing to pay for it if it was priced correctly. This subscription model would be based on the way cable companies offer premium channels on top of their basic packages.
There may be antitrust issues if a group of the most popular news organizations/social media content providers formed an entity and began offering their content in a pooled subscription. The Sports Broadcasting Act enables professional and collegiate sports leagues to package and sell pooled broadcasting rights. Even though member teams/schools are individual entities, Congress has carved out an exemption for this industry.
Why can't Congress carve out the same type of exemption for news organizations and/or social media and/or entertainment entities that would enable them to pool their resources? If professional sports leagues and NCAA member schools enjoy this type of special exemption why can't the news and/or the social media/entertainment industry also receive a special exemption under the law?
The bottom line is that content creation is not free and imaginative business methods must be utilized that may require new laws or a rethinking of some of our current laws. I believe now is the time for the business, legal, and political community to come together to draft a plan that accounts for this change in how people view, price, and protect intellectual property. To learn more about these issues you may contact me www.shearlaw.com
Copyright 2010 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label Intellectcual Property. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Intellectcual Property. Show all posts
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, October 24, 2009
NFL Fights Over Access To College Game Day Content
The NFL is currently in a standoff with the company that video records college football games for eight conferences and then delivers it digitally to the NFL. The content is primarily utilized by the NFL's College Advisory Committee to form an official opinion on college juniors who are thinking about entering the NFL draft before their college eligibility is exhausted. The College Advisory Committee acts as another source for potential early entrants to the NFL draft because without this committee prospects would only be able to obtain information about their possible draft prospects from sports agents and their college football coaches.
The company that creates the content and then delivers it to the NFL, XOS Technologies, has reportedly made a mulit-million dollar rights fee request on behalf of the college football conferences it works with to the NFL for content that was previously delivered free. The College Advisory Committee is made up of participants from each NFL team and it provides a draft opinion of college underclassmen. This arrangement has provided college juniors an opinion that is not biased by the opposing interests that sports agents and college coaches inherently possess. The analysis that the College Advisory Committee provides is mutually beneficially to both the NFL and to underclassmen. Potential draft prospects are able to obtain a professional opinion about their readiness for the NFL while the NFL has been able to scout potential draft picks with free access to game day tapes.
From a legal and business perspective, there are several issues that need to be determined. What is the monetary value of the game tapes to the NFL? Who owns the rights to these game day tapes? Does the conference own the game day content or do the two schools who play the game own the rights? If the content is used for purposes other than talent evaluation, such as for entertainment or analysis on the NFL Network, what is the value of this use? If a college underclassman would like to obtain the game day tapes and post clips on a social media website to promote himself can the player also obtain the rights for this use? How much is the College Advisory Committee's talent evaluation services worth to college football programs and their players?
These questions need to be answered sooner rather than later because there is a high probability that a larger number of juniors than usual will declare themselves available for the upcoming NFL draft due to the possibility that a new NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement that is in the initial stages of negotiation may put some type of cap on rookie salaries.
In my opinion, the NFL should pay some type of fee for the game day tapes depending on the type of rights that are granted. Since NFL teams pay tens of millions of dollars to top draft picks, game day tapes are very valuable in the evaluation process. I do not believe it would be practical to charge potential draftees for an independent evaluation because most likely they could not afford the cost of the review. However, I think some type of deal should be worked out that would allow a player to obtain game day content that would allow them to directly promote themselves on social media websites.
Copyright 2009 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
The company that creates the content and then delivers it to the NFL, XOS Technologies, has reportedly made a mulit-million dollar rights fee request on behalf of the college football conferences it works with to the NFL for content that was previously delivered free. The College Advisory Committee is made up of participants from each NFL team and it provides a draft opinion of college underclassmen. This arrangement has provided college juniors an opinion that is not biased by the opposing interests that sports agents and college coaches inherently possess. The analysis that the College Advisory Committee provides is mutually beneficially to both the NFL and to underclassmen. Potential draft prospects are able to obtain a professional opinion about their readiness for the NFL while the NFL has been able to scout potential draft picks with free access to game day tapes.
From a legal and business perspective, there are several issues that need to be determined. What is the monetary value of the game tapes to the NFL? Who owns the rights to these game day tapes? Does the conference own the game day content or do the two schools who play the game own the rights? If the content is used for purposes other than talent evaluation, such as for entertainment or analysis on the NFL Network, what is the value of this use? If a college underclassman would like to obtain the game day tapes and post clips on a social media website to promote himself can the player also obtain the rights for this use? How much is the College Advisory Committee's talent evaluation services worth to college football programs and their players?
These questions need to be answered sooner rather than later because there is a high probability that a larger number of juniors than usual will declare themselves available for the upcoming NFL draft due to the possibility that a new NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement that is in the initial stages of negotiation may put some type of cap on rookie salaries.
In my opinion, the NFL should pay some type of fee for the game day tapes depending on the type of rights that are granted. Since NFL teams pay tens of millions of dollars to top draft picks, game day tapes are very valuable in the evaluation process. I do not believe it would be practical to charge potential draftees for an independent evaluation because most likely they could not afford the cost of the review. However, I think some type of deal should be worked out that would allow a player to obtain game day content that would allow them to directly promote themselves on social media websites.
Copyright 2009 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
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